The Firestone-Columbus was built by The Columbus Buggy Company. The company was founded by Clinton Firestone and the brothers George and Oscar Peters in Columbus, in 1875, to become one of the largest buggy manufacturers in the USA. On the turn of the twentieth century the company shifted to automobile production, building electric and gas powered vehicles. In 1906 the company started building gasoline-powered automobiles and in 1909 the first Firestone-Columbus, designed by Lee Frayer, made its debut at the Chicago Automobile Show. Firestone-Columbus cars were equipped with quite a few mechanical innovations, such as kerosene side and tail lamps, rear axle stabilizers and acetylene powered, high quality prestolite head lamps. In the 1911 Indianapolis 500-Mile Race a Firestone-Columbus arrived 13th out of 40 entrants. The Columbus Buggy company could not resist the competition of mass production manufacturers and went bankrupt in 1913.